Mike Geis, AKA the Language Guy, writes about language issues. He's a retired linguist who comments on language found in public relations, politics, law and more. The blogger interviews continue.
Q. When did you start blogging?
A. On 2/24/05. Right now there seems to be 133 posts, archived both by month and by subject matter.
Q. What's your purpose or motivation to blogging? What do you hope to accomplish?
A. My official purpose is to provide "commentary on oks and do a web search to see if I can make the issue topical. I always find something. Google is my best friend.
Q. What has provoked the most response from readers?
A. For some time I labored in splendid anonymity getting 25-50 hits a day, possibly even less, when the thought occurred to me that I should dredge up my stuff on the language of the abortion issue which I presented in a neutral fashion. This provoked a firestorm of responses. I don't remember how many but I think I got something on the order of 1500 hits a day for awhile. I was then egged on by an old college friend to take on the Creationists. Things have settled down since then. I like to poke a stick in the eyes of fundamentalists of any type -- religious, political, whatever.
Q. Do you know who your readers are and if so, do you have much interaction with them? Anything interesting to say about them?
A. I know who some of them are. I have some regulars who sometimes wage long intellectual battles on a topic raised by blog. Some of my commenters are very smart and have interesting things to say. Some are clueless and don't know and may never know it..
Q. If you know, are your readers language or journalism experts or just regular folks?
A. They come in all flavors. Early on, linguists popped in but most of my readers are nonlinguists. They seem to come from all over the world except for Spanish speaking countries, and Africa. The majority are from the US and UK.
Q. Do you try to post on a regular schedule or as topics arise?
A. As they arise, but I like to try to turn out a blog every few days.
Q. Do you think we should think about linking in some fashion to deliver language or other advice by e-mail or share content more regularly? (This is completely off the top of my head and did not inspire this Q&A.)
A. I have a long history of being a Lone Ranger and would be disinclined to engage in such a thing. I am hard to organize.
Q. Do you consider yourself web savvy or up to date on technology? Will we still be blogging in five years or will technology completely replace this method of communication?
A. I have been writing html code for years but am rapidly falling behind. I know enough html and css to personalize the look of my blog and do my own archiving.
Q. How much time do you spend each week on your blog?
A. The average blog takes me from an hour to four or five hours to do with most taking at least two hours. Writing is hard work if you want to try to get things as right and as readable as you can.
Q. What are your favorite language web sites or blogs?
A. The Language Log is always good for a laugh. I know most of the people involved. I like a former student's blog, Literal-Minded. The guy who writes Semantic Compositions is very smart and says a lot of interesting things. I think he is the brother of Literal Minded. Runs in the family, I suppose. I like sometimes to use the Blogger feature "Next Blog" to sample blogs.
Q. Is there anything else you'd like to add?
A. I gave a talk on blogging to a group of middle-aged or older academics recently who knew nothing about it. They, as I suppose most do before they look around the blogosphere, think it is mostly about teenage angst. It was fun showing them that it is a great deal more than that. The web generally tends to provide information whereas blogs provide analysis and opinion. They are good companions.
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